The Full English Lyrics

The bandleader's wife and their little boy

Listening to the wireless set in the lounge, when she says 'Son...

You're six years old and your Father and I

Think it's time you learned music like him. Won't that be fun.'

But when the child sees the new piano

He turns round and he starts to run. (He says...)

Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

Mummy no. Mummy please, Mummy, take it away.

Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

Mummy no. Mummy please, Mummy, take it away.

Twelve years' hard work later he's in music college,

And he's got a strange look behind his eyes.

But in the big competition,

He play that Second Tchaikovsky Concerto so well, he win the prize.

But as they're handing him the silver trophy,

He jumps up and suddenly cries...

'Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

I can't stand any more, won't you take it away.

Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

Mummy no. Mummy please, Mummy, take it away.'

So they send him down to the Tavistock Clinic

Where they try to find out the cause of his attack.

And his friends all tell him 'You've been given a wonderful gift,

And if you think about that, things won't seem so black'.

But he says 'It's not much of a gift

If they won't let you send the thing back.

'Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

I can't stand any more, won't you take it away.

Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

Mummy no. Mummy please, Mummy, take it away.'

'If a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make the laws'.
Andrew Fletcher, 1703
 

'It is the best of all trades to make songs, and the second best to sing them.'
Hilaire Belloc, 1909.
 

'Rock'n'roll you wrecked my life. You're a beautiful mistress, but a pig of a wife.' 
Judge Smith, 1978.
 

You should see him now, he's got a contract with Sony

And a Garage album in the charts. He's really grand.

He's got a six piece group and an Entourage,

But his girlfriend says he's really hard to understand.

She should listen to the words he whispers

Each time he strikes up the band.

'Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

I can't stand any more, won't you take it away.

Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.

Mummy no. Mummy please, Mummy, take it away.'

The first and last tracks on 'The Full English' have music as their subject. Music may be beautiful and uplifting, but the decades of dedication and discipline that it takes for a musician to achieve excellence, can be surprisingly destructive. Many fine musicians seem to lead less than happy lives. These days I'm a happy bunny, but then I've never been a fine musician. What I do seems to be something else entirely.

I love period sounds of all kinds, and it was great fun putting together the opening snatch of 'Workers Playtime' dance music. My old friend, the actor and Flamenco musician David Shaw-Parker, who played the stunning acoustic Guitar passages on 'Curly's Airships' makes a guest appearance here on Banjolele.

The quotations about music, spoken during the central section of the song, include one from Hilaire Belloc, perhaps my favourite poet, and a quote from my own chamber opera 'The Book Of Hours' (which was directed by Mel Smith in a production at the Young Vic theatre in 1978, but which will probably never see the light of day on record).

The clicky-clack sound is René playing the Reque, a heavy Tambourine from Egypt.

For non-UK listeners
The Tavistock Clinic is a famous hospital for the treatment of mental illness, in North London.